When this city can’t paint a sharrow without five years of “study”, when cops are randomly shoving bike riders off their bikes, our bus shelters go unshaded and uncleaned, we’re subsidizing electric cars?!

Pedestrian fatalities make up 25% of the deaths on the streets, but only account for 1 or 2% of the mode split – and we’re not going to focus on that.

Can we just step back for a minute and recognize what a bunch of stupid losers run this city, and the political direction this city is headed is towards absolute ruin. Can I get an amen.

http://sos-djb.blogspot.com/ DJB

In a that’s still overwhelmingly dominated by car use (67.1% of commuters in LA City drive alone according to the 2006-08 ACS), it makes sense to invest in public infrastructure to charge electric cars. This has important implications for reducing pollution in the long run. If we want to take away space from cars in roads for bikes (which we should do), there’s a risk of increasing emissions as cars spend more time idling and experience more stop-and-go. The solution is phasing in hybrids and electrics while ratcheting down overall vehicle use.

Electricity is how vehicle energy must be delivered for any workable solution to climate change to happen, so I say let’s start removing the barriers to marketing these cars.

http://ubrayj02.blogspot.com ubrayj02

No, it does not make sense to subsidize driving a private automobile more!

People are literally dying because of the car-centric designs of our roadways, and we’re going to give the richest mother f&&&ers in LA tax dollars to drive their 2nd or 3rd cars?

Did you see that MTA survey? You know, the one that showed that 2/3rd of their ridership HAD NO CARS? They have no other options – they can’t walk, they can’t bike, and they sure as shit can’t afford a eCar.

http://sos-djb.blogspot.com/ DJB

I give a crap what they run on, because I breathe the crap they put into my air, and I have to live in the climate change they’re creating. I agree with you on non road users paying for roads. I agree with you on cash for clunkers. I agree with you on making drivers pay for their own parking.

I really think these cars need help to get cheaper (economies of scale). I just don’t see any way around spending some money on this. I wish everyone were biking around like you. But they’re not.

I think this debate would benefit from some percentages. So, if I could wave a magic transportation wand I’d spend maybe . . .
20% of transportation money on complete streets
20% of transportation money on transit
20% of transportation money on alt.-transit-friendly land uses
20% of transportation money on repairing existing infrastructure &
20% of transportation money on cleaning cars

I’d be interested to see your priorities.

Spokker

Hey ubrayj, the Bureau of Public Roads sponsored an essay contest back in the old days and the prompt was, “How Good Roads Help the Religious Life of My Community.” The prize was a scholarship funded by Harvey Firestone. Yes, the tire maker.

David Galvan

Ubrayj: Would you have opposed the government-legislated demand that lead to the development of the Catalytic converter? That action reduced harmful emissions from automobiles due to government action. L.A. would be far more smoggy than it is today had that action not been taken.

Seems similar to the government stepping in now and taking steps to encourage the purchase of electric cars to replace their higher-polluting gas-only predecessors.

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/joelinton Joe Linton

@David Galvan – Did those catalytic converters solve all of LA’s problems caused by cars? I wouldn’t oppose catalytic converters… they are a small step in the right direction. Would we have been better off investing the time/energy (spent on catalytic converters) on something else? Like viable transit, bike and walk facilities, great places where people want to hang out… I suspect that those sorts of priorities would have yielded much greater broader multiple-benefits.

Cars have a lot of adverse impacts on us: local air pollution, yes, but there’s a lot more: killing huge numbers of people, water pollution, obesity, global warming, noise, sprawl, and the list goes on. If we look at a catalytic converter (or an electric car) as a prioritized solution, we’re looking at making a small dent in a small part of a big broad problem. When we over-hype these small steps,the message it gives people is “we fixed the problem, so go ahead and drive all you want.” This is misleading and short-sighted.

If Mayor Villaraigosa was saying something like “We’re going to do complete streets, promote biking, walking, carshare, taxi, bus and rail, smart growth, and the cars that are still out there will be electric” then maybe I could get behind an electric car agenda. What I heard from him is more like “we’re going to promote green cars and we’re going to build a subway to the sea.” To me that’s not an agenda that builds a robust resilient transportation system where people have choices, where communities and the environment are healed.

Word On The Street

“With 6 to 7 million cars registered in LA County, it's really laughable to hear the supposedly most progressive thinkers around on the topic go for reducing the number of autos by a mere 100,000 by 2020! Why not 3.5 million? Cut the damn things in half.”